non-distracting alpha

After spending a week dedicating my brain to the efforts of release testing, I had a realization of just how distracted office life is. Prior to my arrival at my current employer, I was telecommuting and enjoying the associated super-productivity. When I made the job switch, I continued the super productivity, but it took much more effort and longer hours.
I enjoy being in the office, I am a social creature at heart, but my work often suffers from the little distractions here and there. When I am in my "zone" I get amazing things done in minimal amounts of time. I can multi-task like there's no tomorrow. But when you add in the chatty noises of people on the phone all day within earshot, the movement of 200 people in a high rise building, and the general distractions of working in this environment, productivity goes down hill.

Last week I was able to work up 13 defects (in the office this work normally takes me 3-4 weeks to research and complete). I even managed to learn the missing pieces of my IDL knowledge base (not that anyone wants to be a know it all on indirect lending, but it helps when debugging) I didn't have much free time (no shopping or beach trips) but I feel super accomplished and refreshed. I didn't even manage to get in my traditional CA sushi fix! I am still a little shocked about that one. I did find a break for fish tacos, a late night dinner trip to Asti (super yum Italian seafood in gaslamp), and was able to meet up with a few friends for late night meals/drinks. Just not my normal CA travel agenda, which was fine.

I also managed worked in a 3:20 am showing of Watchmen on the last night, banking on the long flight home to recoup some sleep time. I figured it was a good reward for working 12-14 hour days between alpha and keeping up with projects back home. My favorite line of that movie being "I am used to going out at 3 a.m. and doing something stupid." I think the lack of sleep and the timing made that way more hilarious than originally intended. I loathe the color yellow, but the film was made well enough for me to ignore my normal annoyances with color palates and allowed me to focus on the great storyline. (I think I would have liked giant CGI squids better for the ending, but that's just me)



Misc thoughts on the upcoming release:
*account number change - great idea, but can't use it with remote poster/failover D :(
*loan queue enhancement - bug free and looking forward to the screen and field additions
*masked hb param changes - again long time coming security feature that will be put to good use
*syc off/onhost - possibly my favorite list item
*ezwriter datafiles - I don't use ezw, but I know alot of people who will appreciate this addition
*created by fields - looking forward to this one and modifying the fmhist searches out of existing specfiles to speed up processing
* lots of good stuff in this release and nothing too crazy to warrant months of pre-load testing

It was a great week. I learned alot and was able to share my brain with a few other industry people in the process. I will have to get make-up sushi another time :)

My Gaiman History

Last night I re-confirmed one of my own beliefs. Neil Gaiman is one of the greatest modern storytellers.

For me it started in 1989. I was wandering through a comic book shop and saw the beautiful artwork of Sandman Issue #1. I was instantly hooked. I was a faithful reader and collector of the series through 1996. My collection survived my brother twice; once when he burned my issue 8A (the rare alternative print release), and the destruction by shred of my copy of issue #1 that began it all. I was blessed with the good fortune of a godfather who owned his own comic book shop as a "hobby" - he was a FBI agent by day and comic book n3rd by night. He was my guide growing up to the world of fantasy found in the thin paper pages I loved so much. I owe him a million times over for introducing me to the world of comics and gaming.

By 1996, I was starting my life as an adult, but I refused to give up the comics. Lucky for me I married a comic book n3rd and we were able to find a home for our collections throughout our new house. I was sad at the loss of the Endless storyline, but this was about the same time Gaiman's novels began to appear. Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, and in 2005 - Anansi Boys - which remains one fo my favorite books of all time. He also started writing children's books. The Graveyard Book, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, and Coraline just to name a few.

The Woves in the Walls, one of my favorite of his childerns series, has a frequent appearance in our evening reading schedule, as do most all of his books. I love sharing my love for his work with my daughter. I can't wait until she is old enough to enjoy his comics and novels. We went to see Coraline last night, and although it wasn't a word for word interpretation of the book, it was beautiful and wonderful, and we all adored it on the big screen. The 3D technology was amazing and impressive. The paper mice sequence at the end (post credits) was breathtaking.

I can't wait to see what he has planned next. And yes, I am still holding out for the film adaptation of Death. I have been promised a long awaited Guillermo del Toro and Neil Gaiman collaberation for many years now and I refuse to give up hope :)

I have been a faithful fan of Neil Gaiman for 20 years now. I am thankful for the enjoyment his works have brought me throughout my years, and I hope to continue enjoying his creations for many years to come.

Lost Party!!!

In preparation for tonight's Lost Viewing party, I decided to work on some craft projects

I found labels for some of the foods on the web, and made some others using photoshop.

The Boarding Pass Shiraz is very close to Oceanic Flight style.. so no labeling was required there.

I had thought about doing mini liquor airplane bottles for cocktails, but didn't have the time to get to the liquor store before they closed.


Next I took pearl station Dharma logos and rolled them into the toilet paper for the bathrooms.

I didn't plan for the correlation to Paulo finding the toilet in "The Cost of Living" episode, season 3, but it worked out really nicely.

I am wondering who will be the first to get the TP surprise this evening.

The centerpiece of the table is a conglomeration of Dharma food rations and meds.



Epi pen testers make great pseudo auto injectors and left over med bottles have been labeled with the antidote for the island.

The menu for tonight is Cluck's Chicken (for Hurley), Dharma mac and cheese supper rations, assorted island fruits and veggies, and I found some Peanut Butter Klondike bars. (Peanut Butter and Polar Bears - Oh My)

There are also Saywer's Fish Biscuits (I baked and detailed sugar cookies instead of preparing actual fish flavored ones) , Dharma Rationed beer and soda, and random other assorted themed foods. It should be a fun night!!!

urban hacking / space invaders

Closing Branches

I was shocked to read this headline this morning:
CoastHills Federal Credit Union shutting down two branches

It looks like there will be no layoffs for the employees, but this is a definite sign of the economy.

floating point binary

from the math thread on smug earlier today... why MONEY doesn't compute

http://www.calculateforfree.com/sci.html

Here's my 2 cents on fuzzy computer math: (please feel free to ignore my ramblings)

Floating-point is a lot like scientific notation. It generally has a radix (coefficient), which can be adjustable and an exponent or scale. The radix is multiplied by the base to the power of the exponent.

Ex: 123456.7890 in ten digit precision = radix - 1234567890 with a exponent of 2 (the radix point follows the first digit).

So the value is 10^2*1.234567890 or 123456.7890

Because the radix point is adjustable the floating point notation the math gets fuzzy.

EX: 0.15 * 0.15 = 0.0225

In float point

EX: (1.5*10^-1)x(1.5*10^-1)=(2.25*10^-2)

Computers then use rounding modes to compute the results of floating point operations

In multiplication the radix is multiplied while the exponents are added and the result is rounded, small errors are reported as multiple operations are completed. The errors will occur then the exponent is either too large or too small resulting in hidden bit differences in the math. (side google note: Horner scheme computation for a great algorithm for floating point multiplication and division)

If you made it this far and didn't fall asleep, check out this book "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic" Goldberg, 1991... It's a great read if you enjoy this kinda stuff.

http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html

Or in the words of Xena... WIZARD!